Immigrants, Parenting and Tiger Mothers

Amy Chua’s book, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” has created quite a stir in the US. In it Ms Chua, a Yale Law Professor, describes her hard driving parenting style that achieves the perfect child, rather than the feel good ‘Disneyesque” Western Style of parenting which does not push achievement. In the Wall Street Journal article titled ‘Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”, Ms. Chua defines the term ‘Chinese mothers” as—I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise

Thus it is clear that at least in Ms. Chua’s view mostly immigrant mothers qualify as the over driven creators of superb children, the Tiger Moms. Why? Immigrants bring with them the drive and the focus to succeed. They choose to come to the US, (as opposed to just being born here,) fight a lot of discrimination, and make it big. The other choice for them is to go back to the life they are fleeing from. No one hands them food stamps, no one gives them Social Security. No health insurance.They have to fight for everything they get, and in the strictest Darwinian terms, for them it is the survival of the fittest. And fittest they become. And so do their children, first generation Americans raised by immigrant parents. Eventually these children become successful adults, going into ivys, having successful jobs, paying lots of taxes. And what happens to the kids of the anti immigration ralliers? Well, at best they do the blue collar jobs, at worst they become KKK members.